Ancient viral genomes reveal introduction of human pathogenic viruses into Mexico during the transatlantic slave trade
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
- University of Copenhagen, The Globe Institute, Denmark
- North Carolina State University, United States
- Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, United States
Abstract
After the European colonization of the Americas there was a dramatic population collapse of the Indigenous inhabitants caused in part by the introduction of new pathogens. Although there is much speculation on the etiology of the Colonial epidemics, direct evidence for the presence of specific viruses during the Colonial era is lacking. To uncover the diversity of viral pathogens during this period, we designed an enrichment assay targeting ancient DNA (aDNA) from viruses of clinical importance and applied it to DNA extracts from individuals found in a Colonial hospital and a Colonial chapel (16th c. - 18th c.) where records suggest victims of epidemics were buried during important outbreaks in Mexico City. This allowed us to reconstruct three ancient human parvovirus B19 genomes, and one ancient human hepatitis B virus genome from distinct individuals. The viral genomes are similar to African strains, consistent with the inferred morphological and genetic African ancestry of the hosts as well as with the isotopic analysis of the human remains, suggesting an origin on the African continent. This study provides direct molecular evidence of ancient viruses being transported to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade and their subsequent introduction to New Spain. Altogether, our observations enrich the discussion about the etiology of infectious diseases during the Colonial period in Mexico.
Data availability
Reconstructed genomes from this study are available in Genbank under accession number MT108214, MT108215, MT108216, MT108217. NGS reads used to reconstruct ancient viral genomes reported in this study are available in Dryad (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5x69p8d2s).
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Data from: Ancient viral genomes reveal introduction of human pathogenic viruses into Mexico during the transatlantic slave tradeDryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.5x69p8d2s.
Article and author information
Author details
Axel A Guzmán-Solís
Jorge A Gómez-Valdés
Benjamin R tenOever
María C Ávila Arcos
Funding
Welcome Trust Sanger (208934/Z/17/Z)
- María C Ávila Arcos
PAPIIT-DGAPA-UNAM (IA201219)
- María C Ávila Arcos
Human Frontier Science (RGY0075/2019)
- María C Ávila Arcos
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: Permission to process these samples were provided by the INAH Archeology Council with numbers 401.1S.3-2018/1373 and 401.1S.3-2020/1310 for the Hospital San Jose de los Naturales and the Temple of Immaculate Conception (La Conchita), respectively.
Copyright
© 2021, Guzmán-Solís et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Ancient viral genomes reveal introduction of human pathogenic viruses into Mexico during the transatlantic slave trade
eLife 10:e68612.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68612
Further reading
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The transatlantic slave trade introduced dangerous human pathogens into Mexico
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